North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

White Gold Corp. Feb. 10 announced that the maiden diamond drill program at Ulli's Ridge has cut high-grade gold at this discovery target about 3,000 meters southwest of the Golden Saddle and Arc deposits on the company's White Gold property in the Yukon.

The Golden Saddle and Arc deposits host 15.6 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 2.28 grams per metric ton (1.14 million ounces) gold; and 9 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.39 g/t (402,100 oz) gold.

Exploration by White Gold has identified a 6,500-meter trend of gold mineralization that runs alongside the Yukon River south of Golden Saddle and Arc. Ulli's Ridge lies at the southeast end of this trend that also hosts the Ryan's Surprise discovery immediately to the northwest.

The Ryan's Surprise target has been a focus of diamond drilling over the past two field seasons, and in 2021 drilling was expanded southwards to the Ulli's Ridge target.

Highlights from previous drilling at Ryan's Surprise include:

• 6.1 meters of 20.67 g/t gold from a hole drilled in 2018.

• 3.47 meters averaging 17.4 g/t gold in a hole drilled in 2020.

• 3.76 meters averaging 10.96 g/t gold in a hole drilled in 2020.

• 12.3 meters averaging 8.69 g/t gold in a hole drilled in 2020.

• 25.5 meters averaging 1.66 g/t gold in a hole drilled in 2021.

White Gold first tested Ulli's Ridge with rotary air blast drilling carried out early in the 2021 season. Previously reported highlights from this RAB drilling include:

• 21.3 meters averaging 1.35 g/t gold in hole WHTULR21RAB005.

• 6.1 meters averaging 4.67 g/t gold in hole WHTULR21RAB006.

• 9.1 meters averaging 2.26 g/t gold in hole WHTULR21RAB009.

Encouraged by this success, the company followed up with seven diamond drill holes, all of which cut significant gold mineralization.

Highlights Include:

• 5.13 meters averaging 2.04 g/t gold in hole WHTULR21D001.

• Eight meters averaging 1.03 g/t gold and 4.1 meters averaging 2.44 g/t gold in hole WHTULR21D002.

• 4.49 meters averaging 1.91 g/t gold in hole WHTULR21D003.

• 19. 5 meters averaging 6.94 g/t gold in hole WHTULR21D004.

• 18.5 meters averaging 1.36 g/t gold in hole WHTULR11D005.

White Gold says this drilling has traced gold mineralization over roughly 650 meters of strike at Ulli's Ridge and the mineralization remains open along strike and at depth.

"We are very pleased with the results from our maiden drill diamond drill program at Ulli's Ridge as they continue to demonstrate the extensiveness of gold mineralization in this area. Ulli's is situated on a multi-kilometer gold-in-soil anomaly which hosts several other prospective targets in close proximity to our flagship deposits," said White Gold CEO David D'Onofrio.

The company says the high-grade gold mineralization encountered in hole WHTULR21D004 is associated with strong arsenic, which has not previously been observed on the property. This open's up a new style of mineralization to explore at White Gold.

"The significance of the high-grade gold found in Hole 4, which is also associated with high arsenic values, and very similar to rocks found around the Teacher showing to the north, is that it introduces a new style of high-grade gold target to follow up on," said White Gold Chief Technical Officer Shawn Ryan. "Historically, gold-arsenic anomalies were classified as Arc Style, which generally represented lower gold grade (< 2 g/t Au) potential, and therefore have seen limited exploration."

The renowned Yukon gold explorer says that reevaluating the geochemical data with this new correlation shows a trend of high arsenic values that extends along the entire 6,500-meter trend from Ulli's Ridge to Teacher showing at the northeast end.

"This upcoming summer's prospecting work will directly target this arsenic trend which hopefully leads to more new high-grade gold discoveries," Ryan added.

Overall, White Gold continued to advance its extensive pipeline of gold exploration projects across the more than 1 million acres of mining claims it holds in the Yukon. This included diamond drilling on the White Gold and Betty properties, RAB drilling on the White Gold and Bonanza properties, and extensive early-stage exploration at numerous other properties across its namesake district.

"Our 2021 program was very successful in identifying and expanding new areas of gold mineralization with the potential to increase White Gold's significant resource base," said D'Onofrio.

White Gold's 2021 exploration program in the Yukon continued to be backed by partners Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and Kinross Gold Corp.

Agnico owns a 19.7% interest in White Gold, and Kinross owns a 15.8% stake in the Yukon-focused gold explorer.

Author Bio

Shane Lasley, Publisher

Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.

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